Americans tend to pride themselves with being straight shooters. We don’t like adding too many extra titles to people, we don’t usually laud people with complimentary praise after their name is announced in public. or while writing a formal letter. That is old school, we say. In the olden times, when we addressed a king or a queen we would say your majesty, your highness and long live the king! Even today, proper etiquette when addressing a member of the royal family would be to say your majesty, or your duchess, then mention the level of rank, in addition to bowing your head.
When we call upon the president, we just say the President of the United States, no bells and whistles. Generally, we don’t add on any more titles, such as Commander-in-chief; we are definitely not accustomed to finishing off with a blessing of long live the president.
Which makes us wonder, how should we treat others in our life, at least in our private life. Is the more formal way better or the more casual way better?
Let’s look at this week’s Torah portion Noach for some insight. As the Torah introduces Noah to us it says: These are the offspring of Noah – Noah was a righteous man in his generation, he walked in G-d’s way - He had three sons…. Why does the Torah take a break while telling us who his offspring was to tell us that he was a righteous person? Seemingly that is out of place.
From here we learn that when we mention a person of importance, we should add a compliment.
Complimentary talk is not just some flowery way of expressing ourselves, or for that matter a way of kissing up to someone, it is much more than that. It reveals in the other person qualities that may have not been totally obvious, or perhaps may have even laid dormant.
This is the reason why it is so important to always compliment our children, spouses, friends, and colleagues, for by doing so we reveal within them their full potential.
When we tell someone thank you for tackling a difficult problem at home or work, we are essentially telling them that they have the ability to solve problems; this encourages them to tackle another difficult task and then one more after that. If on the other hand, we take all the credit all ourselves for solving the problem (even if we did most of the heavy lifting) we missed the opportunity to persuade them to take on the next challenge.
Take the famous Jewish expression: Until one hundred and twenty years. This is a blessing that we wish people for good health. When we tell this to an older person, we are telling them that they look young and healthy, that we have confidence in their health so too should they have confidence in themselves.
Positive reinforcement is an important tool that we should embrace at every opportunity.
Look for them, they work!